Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands

Front matter

e hAg a wen fF,

-Religious Revival i in 1 the Ti ie ms

-THE PREMI OF SOUTHWEST F CHINA i di

Contents

Foreword by Stevan Harrell ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv On Language and Orthography xix Map of Research Area in Southwest China 2

Map of Bustling Township 65

INTRODUCTION 3

Foreword

All this crisscrossing detail of history, ethnicity, and religion allows us to see the nation-building efforts of the PRC regime in light of a novel sort of complexity. It points out the delicate road that a no-longer revolutionary but still very authoritarian regime must tread as it draws leaders and members of local communities into its national body politic. At the same time, the Premi case demonstrates the opportunities that the construction of this body politic presents for local political and religious leaders as well as the limits to these opportunities. As so many volumes in the Studies on Ethnic Groups in China series have shown, the CCP goal of building a multiethnic or multicultural nation entails a project that is both worthwhile and tricky, both ideological and opportunistic, both inclusive and alienating of minority people. What the project is not, is predetermined. Every case and every community is different, and every study adds materially to our understanding of the places of these differences in the national fabric.

I am thus delighted to introduce and recommend Koen Wellens’s Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands. It is a fascinating report, from a faraway place, with lots to tell us about ethnicity, religion, and the Chinese nation.

STEVAN HARRELL

Seattle, July 2010 xi

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Ow

PREFACE uring the Spring Festival break of 1987, I was trekking through D northwestern Yunnan with a fellow Chinese-language student.

We had been staying mostly in small mountain villages situated several days’ walk from anything resembling a road. As two foreigners visiting at the time of the Spring Festival, we found ourselves at the center of lively parties with traditional chain dancing and flute music, accompanied by copious meals of fatty pork meat and engaging in uncountable bottoms-ups of locally brewed spirits. To take a break from the strain of social obligations, we decided not to sleep in a village for one night and put up our tent in what we thought was a lonely place along the trail, far away from any village. But no sooner had darkness fallen than we suddenly realized that a person was quietly observing us. In the glow of our campfire, the old man was an impressive figure, dressed in colorful robes and wearing an elaborately adorned hat. In strong Yunnan Chinese dialect, which at that time was still hard for me to understand, he told us he was some sort of lama, a term that usually designates a Buddhist monk or lay priest, and that he belonged to the Pumi minzu. (For more on lamas, see chapters 3 and 4.) He wanted us to pack up all our things and join him as guests in his house. Too tired from the walking and socializing of the previous days, we refused politely but firmly, and he disappeared as suddenly as he had materialized.

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